They won with a back-up quarterback, yielding 33 points, not forcing the Patriots to punt once and giving Tom Brady the ball with 2:21 left in the game needing a touchdown.

I really don’t believe it.

But let’s look closer at why the Eagles won — and as importantly what they did to beat New England. Sure the Dolphins have beat the Patriots in random, regular-season games. But this was a game Bill Belichick and Tom Brady desperately wanted and had two weeks to plan for — as did the Eagles. So …

1. You’ve got to score points. And a lot of them. This isn’t just because of Sunday’s 41-33 win by Philadelphia. The winner in the previous six Super Bowls has scored 34, 24, 28, 43 and 34 points. The Dolphins, for the record, didn’t score more than 27 points this season. It’s quaint to hear the “Defense Wins Championships” crowd. Sure, you can point at the Eagles sack of Brady as winning the game, if you want. The defenses made one big play this game. And don’t read this wrong - you need a good defense. You need to bend whichever way the game goes, which is a Patriots specialty. This game bent into a Big 12 Conference shootout. More and more are in the NFL. If you don’t think the game’s tipped to scoring, you’re not building your team properly.

2. To beat the Patriots, you have to be good, brave … and lucky. Eagles coach Doug Pederson leans on analytics, and that’s why he went for fourth downs 26 times this year, converting 17. They gamble by traditional standards. That’s because they’ve gone for it on percentage-based decisions. To beat New England, the Eagles needed every fourth-down they could. They went for it on fourth-and-one near midfield on what proved the winning drive in the fourth quarter. They went for it on fourth down at the goal line just before half (Foles caught a TD pass). New England went for it on fourth-and-2 and didn’t get it. Philadelphia also was 10-for-16 on third downs, many of them third-and-six or longer. They got some fortune on the two touchdowns that were upheld by replay (Corey Clement’s touchdown looked like an incompletion by the NFL rule). Finally, why did Belichick bench cornerback Malcom Butler? That left Eric Rowe as a starter, and Foles went at him right from the start when trying to cover Alshon Jeffery. After Jeffery caught a touchdown on Rowe, the Patriots switched Stephen Gilmore onto Jeffery. But Butler was missed in a game Nick Foles threw for 373 yards.

“We just wanted to stay aggressive,” Pederson said.

3. Depth matters. The most obvious example is the Eagles losing Carson Wentz and Foles becoming the Super Bowl MVP. No one saw that coming. But the Eagles also lost Pro Bowl left tackle Jason Peters this year and Halapoulivaati Vaitai didn’t cost anything these playoffs. The Eagles lost running back Darren Sproles – and had three good running backs Sunday. So did the Patriots. New England also lost their best defender in linebacker Dont’a Hightower, were on their third-string right tackle, won the AFC championship game essentially without Rob Gronkowski and played the final three quarters Sunday without Brandin Cooks. Still, New England needed defensive end James Harrison, who was picked off the waivers from Pittsburgh late in the year, to play 68 of 75 snaps this game. So depth only went so far. The larger point is the Dolphins don’t have anything close to that depth to overcome similar losses.

4. Turnovers. Officially, it was 1-1. In reality, it was 3-1 for the Eagles. The Patriots had the crucial turnover when Brandon Graham strip-sacked Brady at the end and the Eagles recovered. But they also went for fourth down and didn’t get it. That’s a turnover. They also missed a field goal. That’s a turnover, too. That’s why the Patriots lost.

5. New England has little speed on defense – exploit that. Many scouts figure the best indicator on defensive speed is how many fumbles you force. It’s a physics equation of speed and size. The Patriots rank 23rd in fumbles recovered this year (same as the Dolphins). The Eagles exploited that lack of speed, especially at linebacker, where they had three different types of running backs to throw into the game. The Patriots couldn’t get the Eagles locked into predictable situations, and get control of the game.

6. Have an offensive line to negate the pass rush. The Patriots find your weakness and attack it. That’s often been the Dolphins offensive line. The Eagles have a strong line. Foles didn’t get sacked. Did he even get hit? That gives a quarterback a great amount of confidence. The Patriots have a decent pass rush even without a star pass rusher. They ranked seventh in sacks. When the Dolphins lost to the Patriots this year, Matt Moore was sacked seven times. When they beat the Patriots, Jay Cutler was sacked twice. There’s more to it than that. But Carson Wentz couldn’t have played in the postseason better than Foles, and the line is a great part of that.

7. End of the first half. The Patriots were the team with the best, first-half differential and a lot of that came in the final five minutes of the first half. They scored in the final 30 seconds of the first half in five consecutive games this year. But Philadelphia beat them at their own game. They didn’t just answer the Patriots touchdown, but did so by going for it on fourth down. They knew they needed points.

8. Special teams. Philadelphia won this battle. That’s a rarity against the Patriots. But the Patriots lost this by getting inside the Eagles’ 40-yard line four times in the first half and coming out with six points. Part of that was a missed field goal. The Patriots also missed an extra point (so did the Eagles). Little things matter. This one did.

9. Super Bowl commercials. OK, this isn’t anything about the Patriots, other than they’re never in Super Bowl commercials because they’re playing the game. But the New York Giants had a pretty good commercial for sitting out this game.

10. Las Vegas opened Super Bowl odds for next year with the Patriots as 9-2 favorites. It’s fair to ask if they’ll be back, though. Brady is 41. Both coordinators are leaving. The defense needs a makeover. But …

Brady just threw for 505 yards in the Super Bowl at age 40 in a game where two of his three top receivers were out – Cooks (concussion) and Julian Edelman (out for season). They’ll get injured linebacker Dont’a Hightower back. They’ll get a starting right tackle, rather than play their third-stringer as they did through much of the playoffs. They’ll re-do their defense. So assuming Brady and Belichick are back, the Patriots will be fine.